Nice bit of prose, Percy! - pipTalk Forums

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Poetry Workshop

Nice bit of prose, Percy!

Stumpjumper
Junior Member

since 2012-12-11

Posts 10

0 posted 2012-12-12 03:08 AM

I've often wondered whether 'Ozymandias', by Shelley, is poetry or prose or somehow, both.

What do you think?

Here's the poem:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".

It's a wonderful piece of work, but it doesn't rhyme and in my opinion it doesn't really scan. Here's my rendering of it as prose:

I met a traveller from an antique land who said:

"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown and wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command tell that its sculptor well those passions read which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, the hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.

And on the pedestal these words appear:

"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains.

Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away."

Balladeer

Administrator

Member Empyrean

since 1999-06-05

Posts 25505
Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA

1 posted 2012-12-12 06:39 AM

It is my favorite poem of all times, along with The Raven.

You may want to re-think of whether it doesn't rhyme

Rocko
Junior Member

since 2014-03-10

Posts 16

2 posted 2014-04-13 06:22 AM

It's a sonnet.

bbynams
Junior Member
Posts 49

3 posted 2019-02-27 08:41 AM

I had to look it up. It's prose written by someone who thinks poetically. I disagree that it doesn't rhyme. I'd redo some of the capitalization if I were editing it myself.

bbynams
Junior Member
Posts 49

4 posted 2019-03-26 09:49 PM

"Mary Shelly" (2017) has an interesting take on this.

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